Brenda Nickerson comforts her mini-horse Norton, who got trapped in a sinkhole this morning, as Chatham Firefighter Ryan Holmes shovels out an escape ramp. The hole opened up in the Norton’s pen in South Chatham.

SOUTH CHATHAM – It doesn’t take a giant sinkhole to swallow a miniature horse. But when the ground gave way and gulped down her beloved stallion, Brenda Nickerson panicked, big-time.

“At first I thought I was seeing things,” recalled Nickerson, of South Chatham. “And then I said, ‘you’re not, ‘cuz that’s a hole he’s in.’ So then I calmed down, ‘cuz I was hyperventilating.”

Nickerson reported the holey horse situation to the Chatham Fire Department around 6 a.m. on Friday. Shortly thereafter, rescue officials were knee-deep in the corral, digging a ramp into the 3 to 4 feet deep sinkhole to give Norton the horse a way to clamber to freedom.

“I got his halter on him and his lead and he came right up,” said Nickerson. “And boy didn’t he whinny at those firemen. He was so happy.”

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